The problems of collecting and analyzing information related to a communication network and/or network topology have been recognized in the Prior Art and various systems have been developed to provide a solution, for example:
International Patent Application No. WO2005/053230 entitled “Method and System for Collecting Information Relating to a Communication Network” discloses a method and a system for collecting information relating to a communication network. Data conveyed by nodes operating in the communication network is detected in a manner that is transparent to the nodes. The detected data is analyzed for identifying information relating to the communication network and for identifying missing information. In order to complete the missing information, one or more of the nodes are queried.
The article “The Present and Future of Xprobe2, the Next Generation of Active Operating System Fingerprinting” (Ofir Arkin et al., published on the Internet in July 2003, see http://www.sys-security.com/archive/papers/Present_and_Future_Xprobe2-v1.0.pdf) describes a system performing active operating system fingerprinting. According to The Present and Future of Xprobe2, active operating system fingerprinting is the process of actively determining a targeted network node's underlying operating system by probing the targeted system with several packets and examining the response(s) received.
“Topology discovery for Large Ethernet Networks” (Bruce Lowekamp et al., SIGCOMM '01, Aug. 27-31, 2001, San Diego, Calif., USA) teaches how to determine the connection between a pair of bridges that share forwarding entries for only three hosts, requiring access to only one endpoint to perform the queries needed for topology discovery.
“Topology discovery in heterogeneous IP networks” (Y. Breitbart et al., in proceedings of INFOCOM 2000, March 2000) describes discovering physical topology in heterogeneous (i.e., multi-vendor) IP networks, relying on standard SNMP MIB information. The method of Breitbart et al. can discover the physical network topology in time that is roughly quadratic in the number of network elements.
“Physical Topology Discovery for Large Multi-Subnet Networks” (Y. Bejerano et al., in proceedings of INFOCOM 2003) describes an algorithmic solution for discovering the physical topology of a large, heterogeneous Ethernet network comprising multiple subnets as well as dumb or uncooperative network elements. The algorithm relies on standard SNMP MIB information.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,933,416 entitled “Method of determining the topology of a network of objects” discloses a method of determining the existence of a communication link between a pair of devices. The method comprises measuring traffic output from one device of the pair of the devices, measuring the traffic received by another device of the pair of devices, and declaring the existence of the communication link in the event the traffic is approximately the same.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,628,623 entitled “Methods and systems for determining switch connection topology on Ethernet LANs” discloses a method of determining an Ethernet LAN switch topology including the steps of a) establishing a communications link between a network management server and a switch in an Ethernet LAN, thereby defining the switch as a root switch, b) identifying each of a plurality of switches attached to the Ethernet LAN, each of the plurality of switches includes at least one identifiable port, c) generating a mapping of each of the switches, the mapping including a list for each of the ports of the switches that each of the ports sees, d) eliminating from the mapping each upwardly looking one of the ports, e) identifying in the mapping at least one leaf connected to at least one of the ports, f) maintaining in a topological mapping at least one relationship between the leaves and the ports connected to the leaves, g) eliminating from the list for each of the ports each of the leaves that each of the ports sees, and h) repeating steps e)-g) until all of the leaves are identified.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,697,338 entitled “Determination of physical topology of a communication network” discloses a method of determining physical connectivity between elements such as switches and routers in a multiple subnet communication network. Each element has one or more interfaces each of which is physically linked with an interface of another network element. Address sets are generated for each interface of the network elements, wherein members of a given address set correspond to network elements that can be reached from the corresponding interface for which the given address set was generated. The members of first address sets generated for corresponding interfaces of a given network element, are compared with the members of second address sets generated for corresponding interfaces of network elements other than the given element. A set of candidate connections between an interface of the given network element and one or more interfaces of other network elements, are determined. If more than one candidate connection is determined, connections with network elements that are in the same subnet as the given network element are eliminated from the set.